


Choose Where One's Heart Lies

by Vyc



Series: Sharing the Path [3]
Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-07
Updated: 2017-10-07
Packaged: 2019-01-10 00:33:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12287469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vyc/pseuds/Vyc
Summary: Tauriel is faced with a decision that pulls her in two directions. Or is it three?





	Choose Where One's Heart Lies

**Author's Note:**

> Well, um. Hello for the first time in almost two full years. Depression is a hell of a thing.
> 
> Funnily enough, this is my 50th published work, so congratulations to me? I'm hoping to post more often from here on out, though, so fingers crossed it'll be less than two years before my next work.
> 
> Notes at the end of the piece regarding a minor point of Tolkien language use.

_Amrâlimê_.

The word still rings in her mind like a gently struck bell. She had been told that the secret language of dwarves is a harsh thing, as ugly in sound as the speakers are in face. Yet no word in her own tongue has ever been spoken so sweetly. And as for the reported crude features of the dwarves. . . .

Her face grows warm. Now is the time for acts, not thoughts.

She goes to her prince and her friend, she follows him as he commands—but when Feren bears news of her banishment, she stops in place. 

It is not only the unforeseen beauty of that one word of . . . of caring that yet peals within her. The screams and wailing of the humans upon the shore still repeat in her memory; she knows already she will not forget them even when she passes to Gurfannor's halls.

"Will you come with me?" Legolas—her prince no longer, but friend still—asks her.

She raises her voice over the sounds of grief, knowing her purpose is just.

"No, my friend. I will stay here, for though I am banished from the Woodland Realm, I am still of this world. These people need me more than you do."

She does not wait to see whther Legolas stays or goes, but returns to the lake side to give what help she is able. She may no longer be able to keep watch over her own people (and much later, that sorrow will drive her to her knees), but she has a place here among these humans, and she will not forsake it.

**Author's Note:**

>  **Gurfannor:** One of the Sindarin names for Mandos.


End file.
